Driving the 2018 Audi TT RS With the Man Who Created It

"THIS TURN IS LIKE THE CORKSCREW AT LAGUNA SECA," says Stephan Reil. The Audi engineer and godfather of all things RS is clipping along a rural lane in southwestern Germany in a red TT RS. The road angles out of a frost-covered forest and through barren fields with corn husks plowed under hard ground. The thin stripe of asphalt drops abruptly and doglegs halfway down.

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Steffen Jahn

Reil downshifts twice and accelerates into the kink, grinning wolfishly. When you're head of development at Audi Sport (formerly Quattro GmbH), this qualifies as work. The TT RS's five-cylinder single-turbo engine responds to the increased revs with a delicious pump of sound, and we slingshot through the curve. The coupe is outfitted with snow tires, but the grip is mein Gott! impressive.

Have you ever driven a car and wanted to lean over and ask the chief engineer why he or she did things a certain way? With Reil at my side, I have the chance to do exactly that. Reil developed the first TT RS coupe, which arrived in 2011 with a 2.5-liter five turbocharged to 360 hp and 343 lb-ft of torque, a short-throw, six-speed manual, and a renewed sense of purpose for a car that hardcore enthusiasts had dismissed as a styling exercise.

This time around, the TT RS has even more power and rides on the VW Group's MQB platform. Reil and I are on a loop of rural roads and autobahn that he and his team regularly drive while developing their cars, honing chassis dynamics and engine acoustics. Audi Sport is located in Neckarsulm, a small city in southwest Germany that is closer to Stuttgart, home of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, than Ingolstadt, where Audi itself is headquartered. The region is known as Swabia and offers a great variety of roads threading through dense forests and open countryside. The kind of place that makes you want to get out and drive.

Steffen Jahn

"I love being behind the wheel," says Reil merrily. The first thing that strikes you about the ever-grinning, joke-telling Reil is that he loves his job—and that he is no stiff German engineer. The 51-year-old put 5000 miles on various iterations of the TT RS between the prototypes and the production-ready car. The TT RS is also Reil's daily driver, and he averages 50,000 miles a year commuting between Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt or up to the Nürburgring. "It's my philosophy that, as the head of development, you have to be very close to the product from the earliest stages," he says as he wheels through an off-camber turn. "A car like the TT RS starts as a theory, but it isn't until the first prototype hits the road that you can check the validity of those theories. You've got to get it right from the beginning."

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Audi's performance division is having a moment. Longtime Lamborghini chief Stephan Winkelmann has left Italy to take over as CEO. More than 20,000 RS cars will be produced this year, with seven models offered in Europe. While only the RS7 is currently on sale in the US, we'll presumably have at least five new Audi Sport models, including the TT RS, the RS3, the RS5, a new RS7, and the R8, which is also engineered by the team, even if it doesn't have "RS" in the name. "We are constantly growing," Reil says.

Audi Sport didn't start manufacturing performance cars until two decades ago. By comparison, BMW's Motorsport GmbH division (later known as M) was founded in 1972, and AMG formed in 1967. Quattro was created in the early 1980s to serve as Audi's branded-goods arm, selling stuff like jackets and shirts as a way to keep the Quattro trademark legally intact. It began customizing customer cars in 1995 and released its first model, the S6 Plus, in 1996. (The notorious 1994 RS2 Avant was a joint project between Audi AG and Porsche.)

Steffen Jahn

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Reil joined Quattro in 1995 and took over as head of development in 1998. The first true RS car from the wholly owned Audi subsidiary was the 2000 RS4 Avant, a classic hot wagon. "At the time, I couldn't imagine making a car that was faster," says Reil. It was plenty quick: The 375-hp wagon arrived at 62 mph in 4.9 seconds. "I drove one recently, and the performance is still good, and the sound still amazes. But it also shows how far technology has come, especially in tires, which just scream as you start to push them. I looked back and said, 'This couldn't have been the edge of performance. Could it?' " Since the early 2000s, Reil and his team have turned out reams of RS cars. The ones that made it stateside include the 450-hp RS6 from 2002, the brilliant 2007 RS4, the 2010–present RS5, and both generations of the R8—the everyday supercar that changed the perception of the brand. Today's Audi Sport has four pillars. The first is the RS models and the R8. The second is customer racing, including development of the new, evil-looking RS3 LMS. The third is another growing part of the business, Audi's individualization program. The final is retail. (Yes, the division still sells jackets.)

For Americans, the big takeaway is this: We'll be seeing a lot more RS models in our future, as Audi tries to catch up with M and AMG. And no one will be more influential in the direction of those cars than the man sitting next to me right now.

Steffen Jahn

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"WE TEST OUTDOOR ACOUSTICS HERE," says Reil, pointing out the passenger-side window to a small parking lot behind a veil of trees. "We get out and listen to the car as it passes." I ask if they use special audio equipment. "Just our ears. How you experience the sound. It takes 10 minutes, then we return to the shop and put on another exhaust system and come back." Usually Reil and his engineers will travel in a group of two or three cars, each with its own modification of the engine or damping system, so they can be tested back-to-back. When the team is not here, they're at the Nürburgring.

Asked what he's most proud of in the new TT RS, Reil answers by goosing the engine. The horn-rimmed glasses on his nose rattle. Four hundred horses, 354 lb-ft of torque. Coupled with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (no manual at this time), all-wheel drive, and launch control, the engine will, Audi claims, propel the TT to 62 mph in 3.7 seconds. That feels conservative.

The TT RS will only be available in the States as a coupe. Crucially, the RS model was envisioned and designed alongside the third-generation base TT. In previous times, Quattro would start work years after the base models were already on the road. Now Reil's team gives its engineering wishes to the Audi AG designers from the onset, sounding off on everything from the diameter of the exhaust to the amount of cooling needed and the size of brakes and wheels.

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Steffen Jahn

"You've got to try the launch control," Reil enthuses. (I do, later. Jarringly quick.) The five-cylinder engine has a 40-year history at Audi; a turbo five powered the RS2 Avant, the original Quattro coupe, and the last-generation TT RS. This one is different. An aluminum block replaces the previous TT RS's iron block and helps reduce the engine's weight by 57 pounds. The inherently imbalanced five creates a potent, ferocious sound.

"We could have put in just another high-output four-cylinder," Reil says, then shakes his head curtly. "But the danger with low-end torque is it gets boring when you rev it. We fought for the five-cylinder engine. It's got a raw character. Personality. When you go up to 7000 rpm, every rev has to get wilder and wilder, saying more and more. Luckily, our board is full of petroleum heads, so the argument was won very easily." The broad grin returns.

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There is no better place to get to know someone than on a road trip. Who needs a confessional when you've got the cabin of a car? The happy trance of miles and the relaxation that comes with movement allow people to be themselves. In this case, Reil and I are just two car guys, discussing the deeper philosophy of building sports cars. And I've got opinions: Variable-ratio steering can feel artificial. An accelerator shouldn't be jumpy in sport mode. You should be able to steer with your right foot and not have the torque build in mad, uncontrollable spurts. Over the miles, Reil responds with appreciative nods.

Steffen Jahn

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As for turbos and torque, Reil says: "Sure, the numbers are important. But at least as important is how it delivers power with the throttle response. You should be able to drive the car on track or snow and be able to adjust power using the pedal. The torque has to be adjustable, but not in big clumsy steps, and with no delay."

Reil says he prefers the TT RS with fixed dampers, like the car we're driving today. Magnetorheological dampers are also available; Comfort mode is a bit more forgiving, and Dynamic mode, that much stiffer. But the passive dampers seem just right, even on cracked tarmac. You can definitely feel the road surface through the structure and the seat, but it isn't unpleasant. I hesitate, afraid to sound like a wimp, but tell Reil that many new sports cars seem too stiff for their own good. Softer, comfort-oriented modes often get better traction on uneven asphalt. He nods again. "Too much stiffness comes with a penalty. Most production cars don't have enough wheel travel. So when the car is overly stiff and you're on a surface with a lot of variation, the wheels aren't actually touching the surface as often. It's simple. When you lose your grip, you lose time."

We've been driving for several hours when Reil pulls into a parking area near an autobahn on-ramp for a break. When it's time to get back in the car, I suggest we switch places. He seems surprised—it apparently hadn't occurred to him. Obviously he isn't often a passenger. But Reil cedes his seat, and I follow his directions around a traffic circle and sprint onto the autobahn. Triple-digit speed comes easily. The car wants to run. Top speed is an electronically controlled 155 mph. Upon request, Audi will remove the stopper, letting the car hit 174 mph. I won't be doing anywhere near that today, on winter tires.

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Much too soon, we run out of derestricted autobahn—an unfortunate fact in modern Germany. Reil directs me onto secondary roads, through a forest of white-frosted trees ("Dauerfrost" in German). Valleys cloaked in mist. Ice-slicked asphalt. It's beautiful and ghostly but hardly the conditions to push the Audi. The driving is relaxed, but the car feels tightly wound, built without extra give. Reil may put thousands of miles on it, but this is no grand-touring car.

I ask Reil what he sees as the TT RS's raison d'être. "It is light, powerful, and understated. Super sports cars have a 'look at me!' image. Here you have a toy that performs in the same league, but it's underestimated because it's a compact. It's unbelievably fast on a racetrack. On the Nordschleife, in the hands of a pro driver, the R8 V10 Plus is 15 seconds faster. But with just a good driver, he'll be faster in the TT because of the accessibility of performance."

Steffen Jahn

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THAT EVENING, at a hotel some 30 miles from Neckarsulm, we finish the day with thick venison steaks, good wine, and overlarge beers. We shake hands the next morning, bouncing on our heels in the cold, and then he bounds off in his RS3, back to work at the factory. I too have a meeting later in the day, at the Audi Forum in Neckarsulm. But first, I want to put some more miles on the car. Reil programmed in the Audi Forum address, but I ignore the nav system and head away from the autobahn to open countryside. The roads curl through miles and miles of farmland, dotted by villages. There is no dividing line, the asphalt is good and dry, and there is no traffic.

If I have a misgiving about the new TT RS, it is a simple one: the styling. There's the rear wing and the swollen fenders and a very agreeable lower fascia that can be had in black or silver. But those bits feel more like additions than any overall dynamic concept. The TT itself is no longer a revolutionary design, and Audi's performance cars overall—very much including the R8— need and deserve a hit of design excitement.

Steffen Jahn

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Toggling between Sport and the occasional Sport Plus, I send the TT surging along the back roads. Even on winter tires, this is a car with a lot of grip. I see how you'd soon come to rely on that traction. Little surprise that this front-engine car doesn't pivot at the hips like the mid-engine Porsche Cayman, its obvious competitor, but the Audi intoxicates with sound and grip. The steering is also very good. The previous generation's variable steering, even in Sport, left the wheel featherlight in switchback turns. This time the strategy is different. When switched into Sport, the 14.0:1 ratio is reduced to 12.0:1 but otherwise remains constant. So every steering wheel input feels exactly like the last. Wonderful.

The navigation system keeps directing me, in German, and then redirecting me again when I set off down yet another arcing side road. I'm getting deeper and deeper into the Swabian countryside and farther from the autobahn. I look at my watch. I'm going to be late to my meeting. But I'm here for the car. To hell with it. I gun around a corner, overtake a truck, and burn through a set of sweepers.

I'm reminded of something that Reil had said to me the day before. Something that resonated.

"It's really easy to make a certain kind of sports car these days," he said. "Bolt on a big engine and good brakes, and the numbers will be good. But making a car with personality, that's the difficult part. A car that feels alive, with soul, like a living, breathing thing. That's what we're trying to do."

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